He Might Really Be Gone This Time
by lisemichelle
Summary: He strutted in and strutted back out with a slammed door, taking the Lone Wanderer's spirit with him.


I might do more and I might hate this idk yet it's too early in the morning here to ascertain real coherent thoughts.

* * *

The scorching water hitting her naked back at a diagonal angle began to bore blisters on the surface of her skin. Her nails dug into the wet flesh of her knees to stop the trembling of her hands, while her bare shoulders heaved as she sobbed. Her cropped hair clung to her face with water and salty tears. Her eyes were clenched shut, yet tears continued to slide down her cheek, where her chin met her neck. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid to see that he wasn't showering with her, afraid he wasn't there to wrap his slick arms around her and somehow make inquiring as to why she was crying on the floor of the bathtub sound vulgar and sweet. She was afraid that if she pulled the shower curtain to the side, she wouldn't find tins of pre-war pomades and gel sitting on the bathroom counter. She was afraid there might not be a leather jacket hanging off the chair and not hanging from the makeshift coat hanger next to the door that she made for that damn jacket. Most of all, she was afraid to find that her darling of damnation, Butch Deloria, was not in Megaton at all. That he was back sitting at a booth in Rivet City's bar. And not in the tin house they'd lived together in since she found him in that shitty bar. Fuck, she was afraid.

She needed him. She relied on him. He was her salvation. There wasn't anything she couldn't do with him at her side. What a stupid cliché. She had gotten so fucking accustomed to the ever-present scent of grease and fruity pomade and sweaty leather. At the time, there was seemingly nothing wrong with letting him into her life. Him and that damn toothpick and perfect hair. She didn't necessarily need him, but the company was something she couldn't turn down.

She wished she had turned him down. She recalled rushing into his apartment before she'd gone after her father, when she "saved" Mrs. Deloria from radroaches. She recalled him declaring her his best friend. How the jacket he made her wear was left under her pillow in the megaton home because it didn't serve any ethical use other than aesthetics. How remembering his declaration made her swell with pride whenever she thought of it after she'd left the vault, how it almost numbed the missing father feelings for some stupid fucking reason. She now knew that that was the moment that had final say in the wannabe-gang-leader becoming her waste-wandering companion. When her pipboy picked up the distress signal from Vault 101 over a month later, she remembered Butch's face when she saved his mother. Specifically how a lock of his perfect hair had fallen in his face somewhere between the pleading for help and the best friend declaration. That memory fuelled her when she was forced to gun down the security guards that essentially watched her grow up. That memory was replaced when, on her way to Amata's "rebels", she made eye contact with Butch standing in the hall playing with his damn switchblade with the same lock of hair falling in his face. Then, there was the sight of him drinking the piss-water liquor at Rivet City. He looked so damn lost in that seat. The visible dust particles in the air made him look less sprakle-vault-clean. Some kind of impulse drove her to approach him, speak to him. When she mentioned being lonely, he jumped into the suggestion that he'd be down to restart the formation of a gang she wasn't even really a part of. But she couldn't refuse that scent of grease and fruity pomade and sweaty leather. She wished she'd stop trying to desperately remember that smell, to revive it somehow and sweep it across the metal tin she called home. So if he was truly gone, she could at the very least maintain some illusion that his smell might draw him back. But she knew that was a stupid, stupid, futile thought. She wished she'd stop this shit. But she couldn't.

She wished she hadn't let him in. Hadn't let him live with her. Hadn't let him sleep next to her. Hadn't let him establish any sliver of anything in her heart or mind so that maybe she would find a way to get up, off the bathtub floor, and carry on with her late father's work. But Butch strutted into her life as her best friend with a matching leather jacket to the one she shoved under her bed mere minutes before she numbly stepped into the shower. He strutted in and strutted back out with a slammed door, taking the Lone Wanderer's spirit with him.

The nails that dug into her knees began drawing blood, but she'd been numbed of physical pain as soon as she realized he might really be gone this time.

He might really be gone this time.

He might really be gone this time.


End file.
